Job performance as a mediator of personality interactions and emotional exhaustion

Abstract:

This study examined how personality characteristics affect job performance, and the mediating effects of job performance in the personality interaction-emotional exhaustion relation. Specifically, I hypothesized that neuroticism and conscientiousness would have an interactive effect on emotional exhaustion and that job performance would mediate that relation. Customer service employees employed in a Chinese call center participated and completed a questionnaire assessing personality and emotional exhaustion. As expected, analyses revealed that conscientiousness predicted job performance. Findings also showed that customer service employees higher in conscientiousness or lower in neuroticism experienced a lower level of emotional exhaustion than those lower in conscientiousness or higher in neuroticism. Data supported the hypotheses that conscientiousness and neuroticism had an interactive effect on job performance. People higher in conscientiousness but lower in neuroticism achieved better job performance than those higher in both conscientiousness and neuroticism. Data did not support my hypotheses specifying that job performance mediated the conscientiousness-neuroticism interaction with emotional exhaustion.